Northern Spain / French Pyrenees April 2011

[Kenny De Boeck]

In 2011 I was on a herpingtrip in the French Pyrenees and Northern Spain (approx. the same route Bobby and co did this year)
Here a small photoreport

First stop somewhere in the French Pyrenees, we were looking for C.aspers, couldn't find one that day, we did find loads of Rana temporaria eggs and Vipera aspis zinnikeri

[Kenny De Boeck]

Next point was in Salamandra salamandra fastuosa and Calotriton asper region

On the way we had to stop for some yellow friends crossing over





Finaly we found Calotriton aspers (Will look for pictures on my other laptop that has crashed ) weatherconditions were very bad that day/night and after 2 hours spending in fastflowing streams we almost gave up...at that moment I found one and we kept going for a while, ending up with 8 C.aspers. Fascinating creatures!

Next stop was over the border, we were driving trough a nice forest landscap and we took a little look...after 50meter or so we came acros a little stream...finding very small S.s.fastuosa (according to rangemaps). It was noon and we found 3 animals...all depositing larvae. The animals were not bigger than 14cm...

[Kenny De Boeck]

to be continued...(getting pics from crashed laptop)

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Love that last brooklet! Looking forward to the sequel...

[GertJan Verspui]

Me too, love to see more!!

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Me too, love to see more!!

First, you still owe us your pics of our trip, GJ

[GertJan Verspui]

Yes, that is very true, they will be thrown on this site later......

[Kenny De Boeck]

Okay next stop was a transition zone S.s.bejarae - S.s.fastuosa. On the way we found some little ponds where we also found T.marmoratus, L.helveticus and some Salamandra larvae.







In the village itself were some manmade waterbodies, there we found Salamandra larvae and Alytes obstetricans tadpoles:







First "hybrid" found was this unlucky fella:

[Kenny De Boeck]

At night the magic began









We seriously had to watch where to put our feet, the forestfloor was flooded with these little critters!



The variety was pretty big...

[Laura Bok]

Nice finds, nice pictures, LOTS of salamanders, what else could you ask for? Seems you had a great time. Thanks for posting!